We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
On Renunciation
Jonathan Kos-Read via Compfight
We are bombarded daily with messages that urge us to satisfy every desire we might have. That’s what consumers do. And that’s exactly what the world has reduced us to: consumers. But what about Jesus’ words in Luke 9:23:
Then Jesus said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
Richard Beck posted a piece today on renunciation, something we hear less and less about. Renunciation asks us to be the very opposite of consumers. It demands that we lay down our rights and our desires for the sake of our love for God and our love for others. Here’s a thought-provoking excerpt from Richard’s post. We hope you’ll take the time to read the whole piece.
You aren’t denying yourself in order to earn your way into heaven. Self-denial isn’t about collecting spiritual merit badges. Nor are you denying yourself because God is a Puritanical Judge waiting to zap you with lighting bolts if you eat chocolate, dance or have an orgasm.
No, the reason you deny yourself is so that you can make yourself increasingly available to others.
Love requires self-mastery. Love requires a denial of the self.
Love requires discipline.
Love is discipline.
Love involves the renunciation of sin in our lives. A renunciation of wickedness and the Devil.
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Love, Renunciation, Sacrifice
Related Reading
Thankful for the Passion of God
The classical view of God has held that God is impassible, meaning he is above pathos (passion or emotions). The main reason the church came to this view was that, following the Hellenistic philosophical tradition, they associated emotions with change while believing God was above all change (immutable). Moreover, experiencing emotions implies that one is affected by…
The Cruciform Center Part 4: How Revelation Reveals a Cruciform God
I’ve been arguing that, while everything Jesus did and taught revealed God, the character of the God he reveals is most perfectly expressed by his loving sacrifice on the cross. Our theology and our reading of Scripture should therefore not merely be “Christocentric”: it should be “crucicentric.” My claim, which I will attempt to demonstrate…
Atonement: What is the Christus Victor View?
Most western Christians today understand the atonement as a sort of legal-transaction that took place between the Father and the Son that got humanity “off the hook.” The legal-transaction scenario goes something like this: God’s holiness demands that all sin be punished, which in turn requires that sinners go to eternal hell. The trouble is,…
Homosexuality and the Church: Finding a “Third Way”
Here is a word I a shared this last weekend with Woodland Hills Church (where I’m senior pastor) in response to numerous questions I’ve received over the last several months. People have asked me why the leadership of WHC refuses to jump on the bandwagon of evangelical churches in the Twin Cities who rally their…
Reversing Babel
Several generations after the flood, we read in Gen 11 how humans were still living in one locale and had one common language and culture. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea that they should construct an enormous tower that would reach “to the heavens” in order to make a name for themselves and…
The Witness of Graffiti (Rocks Crying Out)
Ibrahim Iujaz via Compfight On this eve of Easter, we wanted to share something that fit the mood of the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection. D.L. Mayfield wrote this striking piece on the longing for the Kingdom of God in the midst of overwhelming brokenness. We thought it was the perfect reflection for…